Hitcher' Bad Guy Played Like A Hero

February 23, 1986|by PAUL WILLISTEIN, The Morning Call

Rutger Hauer is tired of being the bad guy. He was a villain in "Blade Runner" (as Harrison Ford's nemesis, an albino automaton), "The Osterman Weekend" and now "The Hitcher." Hauer gets the bad-guy parts because American movie stars don't want to wear black hats.

"He makes the film special," said Edward S. Feldman, executive producer of "The Hitcher." "Europeans will play roles like that. Americans never want to be the bad guy." Hauer again plays the bad guy - the title role - in Tri-Star Pictures' "The Hitcher," which costars "Tigerbeat" magazine heartthrob C. Thomas Howell and opened this weekend in the Lehigh Valley and across the nation.

In person, Hauer doesn't look the hardened criminal. His eyes are as blue as the pack of Gauloises from which he takes his cigarettes. His blond hair hangs Barshynikov length at his denim shirt collar. He speaks perfect English with a slight trace of Danish - here and there a "yah" for "yeah" and a "dis" for "this." He has worked hard on eliminating his accent for English-speaking parts.

Hauer brings a particular relish to his villainy. He warms up to his prey - not unlike the cat toying with the mouse. Hauer also arouses empathy. In "Blade Runner," you sensed the automaton didn't want to be a programmed killer.

"Part of the thing that Rutger does so beautifully and effectively is to allow the words to play while acting oppositely," said Robert Harmon, director of "The Hitcher." "If the script says 'hate,' he says it but he has love in his eyes. He plays the villain like a hero."

With the exception of "Ladyhawke," all of Hauer's movie roles have been those of villains. "I understand you can never say never. I think I cannot top this one," Hauer said of "The Hitcher."

Hauer is the hitchhiker to whom Howells gives a ride while driving through Texas on a rainy night. Hauer terrorizes Howell for the rest of the movie, setting him up in a bizarre series of slayings until the two face off in the movie's climactic scene. The movie has a Hitchcock flavor in that Howells is an innocent man accused of a crime.

Producers of the movie are David Bombyk and Kip Ohman. Executive producers are Feldman and Charles R. Meeker. Bombyk, Feldman and Meeker are up for an Academy Award for "Witness," which they also produced and is in re-release. Director of photography is John Seal, also up for an Oscar for "Witness."

"The Hitcher," Harmon's first feature, was written from a first-time script by Eric Red. "I was driving through Texas in the early morning," said Red, 24. "I was nodding off. I gave a ride to a redneck. He didn't talk. I put him out of the car."

That experience became the basis for a script Red sent to "every production company in L.A." Feldman and Meeker responded. "It's very seldom that you get this kind of script over the transom," said Feldman, who described "The Hitcher" as "very visceral. It's the kind of movie that affects you dramatically."

Budgeted at $5.6 million, the psychological thriller contains a number of shootings, chases and and crashes. One sequence involves Texas state police cars rolling end over end. In another, the cars careen into a crashing, burning helicopter.

The movie's not all crash and burn. Bombyk said he and Ohman wanted "someone with a lot of screen presence" for the title role. "The minute Rutger's name came up, we said that's him for the part," Bombyk said. "You'll never get Rutger Hauer in the movie," was Feldman's reaction.

Why did a star like Hauer agree to star in a low-budget movie directed by a first-time director and written by a first-time scriptwriter? "The script grabbed me," said Hauer.

Hauer said the script lacks the "cliches of exposition" common to most films. You don't learn about Hauer's character, John Ryder. Little clues are given, but not a lot of background, or "back story," is provided. "We have a capacity to understand what goes beyond the facts. But in films, we like to be comforted all the time."

The casting was clinched after Hauer saw "China Lake," a $60,000 short directed and financed by Harmon. Tri-Star was so impressed with Harmon's work on "The Hitcher" that he now has a three-picture deal with the studio.

There's a reason beyond being typecast that Hauer doesn't want to play another villain. "We don't just walk away from it," he says of the actor and his role. "We live what we do. I will also have the dirt on me."

When Hauer was asked to describe the key ingredient in playing a villain, he said, "I have to get you somehow if you're watching a film for an hour and a half."

"The Hitcher" is violent. Most of the mayhem happens off-screen. But you do see the results. Red said it was intentional to not give much screen time to the violence, nor Hauer. "He's more frightening for not seeing him. You see the pickup truck, the dead policemen."